Last week, for example, the LGBT group MassEquality teamed up with public television station WGBH to host a candidate forum devoted to discussion of LGBT issues. All candidates for Massachusetts governor were invited, including independent candidate Scott Lively. While the rest of the candidates proudly discussed their support for LGBT rights, Lively hurled one bigoted insult after another. MassLivereports:

The Springfield pastor, anti-gay rights activist and independent candidate railed against "LGBT propaganda," arguing homosexuality is an acquired condition and not a "normal" form of sexuality, promoting reparative therapy, and saying AIDS can be stopped by ending "homosexual sodomy."

(If you're a glutton for punishment, video of the gubernatorial forum is after the jump, at the end of the post.)

Then on Sunday, the UK's Channel 4 broadcasted an interview with Lively where the anti-gay extremist called aggressively masculine gay men "monsters," "serial killers," "mass murderers," and merciless sociopaths. When the interviewer called Lively out for his culpability in Uganda's anti-gay law, Lively deflected, parroting the baseless World Net Daily claim that President Barack Obama is secretly gay:

When I went on to point out that the President Obama is "wholeheartedly" against this legislation, Dr Lively chuckled and said: "I think Obama may as well be a homosexual himself. He is certainly a radical homosexualist - meaning a person, whether they are homosexual or not, meaning a person who is 100 per cent invested in the homosexual agenda."

Rather perplexed by his unexpected comment, I said; "So you think Obama is a homosexual?" He replied: "I think he may be."

(Video of this interview is at the end of the post as well.)

And most recently, in an exclusive interview with gay activist and talk radio phenom Michelangelo Signorile, Lively openly admitted that in his ideal world, governments would punish homosexuality not with prison, but with mandatory "ex-gay" therapy. And what would he do with those who refused to comply? Why, send them to jail, of course.

Recently the subject of an exhaustive report by the Human Rights Campaign in which he was billed as "one of the most notorious exporters of hate," Lively, a long-time crusader against LGBT rights, addressed the Ugandan parliament several years ago regarding what he saw as the dangers of homosexuality and inspired the anti-homosexuality bill. But he said he thinks Uganda went too far in penalizing homosexuality with life in prison. Lively said he's "very disappointed" that Uganda "fell back into punitive sanctions," explaining that he "was urging them to focus on therapy and prevention."

But what if people don't want to go into an "ex-gay" therapy program?

"Well then they would take whatever the other alternative is, which was probably going to jail," he said.

Listen:

Signorile also asked Lively about his recent claim that an anti-gay "revolution" is in the works in response to the "homosexual agenda." Lively said that this revolution will indeed take place if "conservative states... rebel against the federal supremacy clause."

Lively, whose statements are regularly tracked by Right Wing Watch, recently said the country is sitting on a "powderkeg" and that "explosive" change is coming. He told me the Tea Party movement is an example of what's to come.

"I think the Tea Party movement sort of is representative of the unhappiness in the population with this extreme leftist agenda that has been advancing at the expense of Christian culture for a long time," he explained. "I'm just sort of looking out at the landscape and seeing the amount of anger that there is with the Obama administration and the totalitarian police state that is emerging and it's just rolling over Christian values -- not just Christian values but also conservative values."

The irony in all this, as David Badash points out at The New Civil Rights Movement, is that Lively makes these kinds of statements about Christian revolutions and enshrining his fundamentalist beliefs into civil law at the same time that he accuses gays of being fascists and claims (falsely) that the Nazi Party was a cabal of secretly gay men.

I don't know about you, but I can't think of anything more fascistic than the Christofascist state Lively describes.

Leave a comment

We want to know your opinion on this issue! While arguing about an opinion or idea is encouraged, personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please be respectful of others.

The editorial team will delete a comment that is off-topic, abusive, exceptionally incoherent, includes a slur or is soliciting and/or advertising. Repeated violations of the policy will result in revocation of your user account. Please keep in mind that this is our online home; ill-mannered house guests will be shown the door.